Statement of Attorney General Eric Holder on Department of Justice’s Outreach and Enforcement Efforts to Protect American Muslims

Thursday, June 4, 2009

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder released the following statement relating to President Obama’s historic speech today in Cairo, Egypt:

“The President’s pledge for a new beginning between the United States and the Muslim community takes root here in the Justice Department where we are committed to using criminal and civil rights laws to protect Muslim Americans. A top priority of this Justice Department is a return to robust civil rights enforcement and outreach in defending religious freedoms and other fundamental rights of all of our fellow citizens in the workplace, in the housing market, in our schools and in the voting booth.

“There are those who will continue to want to divide by fear – to pit our national security against our civil liberties – but that is a false choice. We have a solemn responsibility to protect our people while we also protect our principles.”

The FBI confirmed Wednesday it was investigating the possibility an Atlanta Jewish site was among other planned targets of a Muslim convert accused of killing a soldier outside a Conway, Ark., recruiting center this week.

Stephen Emmett, spokesman for the Atlanta FBI office, said the investigation into the shooting turned up evidence to suggest Abdulhakim Muhammad, 23, of Little Rock, had plans for a “Jewish entity” in Atlanta. The Associated Press reported memos from the investigation showed Little Rock, as well as New York, Philadelphia, Louisville, Ky., and Memphis, were also on his list.

Emmett declined to say what specific site in Atlanta might have been in Muhammad’s plans, but “precautions were taken [in Atlanta] because of the serious nature of the Little Rock” shooting.

And this: “The man accused of fatally shooting a soldier outside a recruiting center begged for FBI agents to free him from a Yemeni jail where he was ‘radicalized’ by Islamic terrorists, his lawyer told The Associated Press on Thursday. Lawyer Jim Hensley described Abdulhakim Muhammad as an impressionable youth driven to public service in an impoverished Middle Eastern country. But teachings by ‘hardened’ terrorists in Yemen and experiences with Afghan child refugees who were missing limbs drove him to become someone his parents didn’t recognize, Hensley said.”

And one more very interesting post you should read: An investigation by Blue Collar Republican into the Mephis mosque and imam under which the Arkansas jihadi shooter Abdulhakim Muhammad studied/worshiped.